The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (20 page)

I then spent the next hour hopping around how-to websites for container gardening. I had mistakenly believed that a container garden was one thing, like a 1967 Camaro. But I found dozens of plans for gardens made of contained spaces, from using barrels, to giant terracotta pots, to wood-framed beds raised off the ground and situated in rows.

These seemed to be the best way to use the long and narrow space and to give Liz distance between whatever things she decided to grow, like maybe one row for lettuce, fennel, and chives and another for basil, oregano, and thyme. I found a set of free plans on one how-to site, which I downloaded and printed. The instructions, labeled “Easy to Moderate,” were for one rectangular box, measuring four feet long by two feet wide by three feet tall. With the space on the south side of the house, I could make four of them, either out of cedar or maybe Douglas fir. I was pretty sure Dad didn’t have a table saw in his garage, so I would need to rent one. The rest of the supplies would be easy to get my hands on: painter’s caulk, lamp holder, electrical covers to use for drainage, some PVC pipe, sandpaper, wood screws, wood stain, and polyurethane.

I also saw that there were several options for watering the containers, from an automated bubbler system to a soaker hose. It took me all of two minutes to decide I wanted my California family to experience the singular joy of doing something for themselves. I wouldn’t install the automated bubbler. Somehow, I would convince Dad and Liz and even Brady that caring for this garden would awaken something inside of them that appeared to me to be dormant: gratitude for the simple things in life. Caring and tending what God has given you made you more thankful for it. My Amish family had taught me that.

I tallied up the things I needed and came up with a rough estimate of what it would cost. Dad had left a credit card for me to use for entertainment, groceries, gas, eating out, and emergencies. I wasn’t sure that this qualified as any of those, except maybe entertainment for me.

I was excited to go to the nearest builders store and get the supplies, but I figured the first order of business was to hack down and dig up the hedge, which, after doing more Google sleuthing, appeared to be a Japanese wax leaf privet. That would likely take a whole day. And then I’d need to figure out how to get rid of the bushes once I dug them up.

I wouldn’t do any of it, though, until I heard back from Dad. Brady had been acting so odd that for all I knew he was trying to set me up, like maybe that particular hedge was Liz’s favorite thing in the whole yard and he had lied just to make me do something stupid and look bad. I hated to be paranoid, but I’d hate even more to cause some sort of problem. I’d wait for an email from Dad before I would proceed.

I also knew that while all of this planning was well and good, I’d been at it for too long now. I shut down the computer, returned my mug to the kitchen, and headed upstairs to look for a pair of shorts among my father’s clothes with one specific challenge in mind.

It was time to get back on a bicycle.

Whoever invented the expression “It’s like riding a bike” to indicate something one never forgets how to do had clearly never gone without riding a bike for seventeen years. In the next fifteen minutes, I came to understand that this was, indeed, a skill that would need to be relearned.

I was pretty sure I was doing everything correctly—pedaling, sitting, steering—and I was going as slowly as I could, yet the bike kept falling over. I managed to thrust out a leg and catch myself each time, but after three such incidents, I was getting really frustrated, not to mention embarrassed. Finally, I decided that the next time it happened I would just keep pedaling regardless—which was how I ended up flat on the sidewalk a block from the house, in pain and feeling like an idiot.

“You’re going too slow.”

I sat up and twisted around to see who had spoken. A boy of about ten or eleven was sitting on the front stoop of the nearest house, tightening the wheels on a skateboard.

“Excuse me?” I said, trying to recover some dignity as I brushed myself off.

“You keep falling ’cause you’re not pedaling fast enough. Pick up the speed and you’ll be fine.”

I stared at him for a long moment, realizing he was right.

“Thanks,” I said, standing up and checking myself for damages. An elbow and knee were both throbbing, and I saw that they had been scraped up a bit. “What are you doing home at this hour anyway? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“In-service day,” he replied with a shrug, as if I would know what that meant.

“Oh, okay then. Thanks again.”

“You’re bleeding.”

I glanced his way and then back at my wounds. “I’ll be all right.” The scrapes weren’t that bad.

“I’d offer to get you a Band-Aid, but I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

I smiled, not stating the obvious. “I understand. No problem.”

Despite the increasing sting from my scrapes, I swung a leg over the bike, thanked him again, and took off. He was right. The key really was to pick up the speed. By the end of the next block, I was sailing along as if I’d been doing this every day for years.

I rode around for at least an hour, exploring the neighborhood in full and just allowing myself to have fun. It was a beautiful morning, the sun warm on my arms, the sky cloudless and blue. Even my knee and elbow stopped hurting after a while. I felt so free—and so carefree. The experience was glorious, and I knew I would be doing this again while I was here.

Eventually, I decided to head back, and I was glad to see that it was far easier to find my way home via bicycle than it had been by car. As I retraced my path, turn by turn, I realized why. It was because this was the pace I was used to, the pace of a horse and buggy.

I was getting close when I passed the big Spanish-looking house with the front courtyard. Then it was a simple right at the home with the rock garden instead of grass, left at the street light, and straight on from there, just two blocks more.

I slowed a bit as I neared the house where I’d fallen earlier, hoping the boy was still outside so I could thank him again for the tip. I could see movement on the stoop as I drew closer, but as I passed by, he didn’t even look up. He was muttering to himself, obviously frustrated with his skateboard, whacking at one of the wheels now with a wrench.

He seemed to be having trouble with some sort of repair. I would have loved to stop and help, but I had to remind myself that I wasn’t in Lancaster County anymore. What would be seen as neighborly there might come across as downright creepy around here.

Instead, I just called out a loud, “Thanks again! You were right!” as I rode past.

When he glanced up, it looked as though there were tears of frustration in his eyes. Embarrassed, he gave me a wave and then quickly returned to the task at hand. Poor kid. I said a quick prayer for him, that he would find a way to solve his problem or at least find someone to solve it for him.

When I got back to the house, I made myself a sandwich and polished it off with a glass of milk. For a moment, I felt a little homesick, thinking how much I already missed
Mammi
’s delicious noon meals.

As I washed my dish and neatened the kitchen, I calculated the time difference between California and Qatar then decided to check my email for a response from my dad. It had only been a few hours since I wrote, but the timing was good. If he’d gone online prior to turning in for the night over there, he would have seen it.

Sure enough, he had responded. His message was brief and to the point and exactly what I wanted to hear.

Great idea on the container garden! Put the supplies on the card. Don’t work too hard.

Smiling, I shut down the computer and then headed out to the backyard, Frisco yapping excitedly at my heels. I was happy to find work gloves, hedge trimmers, and a spade in the garden shed.

Then I got to work, thankful to have something constructive to do at last.

By the time the sun was setting, I had the remains of the hedge in neat piles on the patio. I had dug out two of the four stumps, which meant I could start on the containers the next afternoon. Brady came outside to see what I’d accomplished, and then I showed him the plans I had found on the Internet. I was relieved when he told me the boxes looked very much like what Liz had described to our dad when she first mentioned the idea.

While a frozen lasagna baked in the oven, Brady helped me put the pieces of the hedge into big yard waste bags. I liked working side by side with him, even for just a few minutes. When we were done, he said a yard waste truck followed the garbage truck on Friday mornings, which would be tomorrow. We pulled the eight bags out to the curb and then went inside to eat.

After dinner, Brady brought his laptop into the family room to work on his paper. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help.

“Not unless you know what MLA is.”

“Should I?”

He just laughed, but it was void of mirth.

I was beginning to see a pattern with him. Whenever a conversation veered toward me as a person or the life I had known as an Amish man, his tone took on a condescending edge. Brady had never been this way around me before. Prior to this, he had always seemed interested, maybe even intrigued, by the kind of life I lived as a Plain man. But not anymore.

“What
is
MLA?” I pressed.

“It’s the format I have to follow for writing this paper. They use it in college. Forget I asked.”

He flipped open his laptop, letting me know he expected no further help from me. Just as I had felt God’s prompting that morning at breakfast, I sensed I should not let this conversation drop.

I went into Dad’s study, searched for “MLA,” and within a few minutes found an easy-to-follow example of a research paper written in the Modern Language Association’s standards. I printed out the example to take back to the family room, and as I passed my father’s bookshelves, I grabbed the pictorial guide to Germany to look at while Brady worked.

Back in the family room, I placed the example on the couch next to him. He glanced down at it.

“Hey!” He picked up the pages. “Where did you get this?”

“Internet,” I said as nonchalantly as I could as I sat back down on the other couch.

He cracked a smile, the first genuine one I had seen in what seemed like hours on hours. “It’s a better example than what my teacher gave me. Way better.” He looked up at me. “Thanks.”

“Sure. Anything else I can do?”

“Maybe you could read it over when I’m done?”

“Be happy to.”

Brady slipped white ear buds into his ears and disappeared for all intents and purposes. I didn’t know how he could write a research paper while listening to music on his computer, but it seemed to work for him.

Settling into a wide leather easy chair, I opened the book on Germany. The first page nearly stole the breath right out of my lungs.

The inside cover had been signed to my dad by its giver.

To my dearest Duke,

So we will always remember the sweet years of our just-new marriage!

Love always,

Your Sadie

I turned the page, and the emotional tug I was feeling intensified. My mother had not only given the book to my dad, but she had written little notes on many of the photographs inside, in a curly, swirly script that begged to be touched.

On a full-page photo of a verdant green snapshot in the Black Forest, she’d written:
“Remember the picnic we had at that park in Triberg? And how it rained? You carried me to the car so my new shoes wouldn’t get muddy.”

On a photo of a sparkling snow scene in Garmisch-Partenkirchen:
“I
told you I couldn’t ski! Ha!”

On a photo of a cobbled street in Berchtesgaden:
“Do you remember eating ice cream on this street? And then I said I wanted to go into that little children’s clothing store so I could buy some lederhosen in case it was a boy. That’s how I told you we were going to have a baby. You nearly fainted in the street. And we did have a boy! We should have gone into the store and bought the lederhosen.”

Page after page, message after message.

When I felt tears pooling in my eyes, I rose from the couch to take the book upstairs to my bedroom.

I would read the rest of it when I was alone.